"We the willing, led by the unknowing, are doing the impossible for the ungrateful. We have done so much, with so little, for so long, we are now qualified to do anything, with nothing" By Konstantin Josef Jireček, a Czech historian, diplomat and slavist.

Collection of Stories: The Legends of Dinka “FROM THE NILE VALLEY” – Part 2

The Legends of Dinka: A double orphan who rose from the ashes of poverty

By Kur Wël Kur, Adelaide,
Australia

Aesop’s Fables in Dinka, translated by Atem Yaak Atem

Saturday, September 7, 2019 (PW) — In a century, 10 years shy ago, a widow, the
mother of four sons, suffered from a crippling sickness. She wallowed in a
rheumatism, and she couldn’t care for her four sons. Her sons were 12, 10, 8 years
and 6-months old. For several years, the degenerative disease deteriorated her
health to the point that she couldn’t move by herself.

Her eldest
son would help her move. A lot of her duties such as pounding and milling
sorghum grains, farming and weeding, tidying and maintaining her homestead were
passed on to her next two sons automatically. The two sons who were 10 and 8
years old were overwhelmed by the duties. So, some duties slipped out of their
responsibilities. Their family’s hut in which their mother was immobilised on
her sickbed was caving in. Her older son would prop up the falling side with
logs.

However,
the forces of darkness pushed the whole family into a vortex, a powerful
whirling mass of suffering. The flimsy materials of a grass-thatched hut
couldn’t hold it any longer. Every other supportive construction material broke
loose. The foundation. The walls. The roof. Putrescent grass on the roof of
which termites had wired with their mudded routes was raining down as if it was
under the forces of an American tornado. The mother was being buried under the
load of a hut that once provided protection to her and her four sons. With
consciousness and caring of the mothers, consciousness and caring, which
mothers take to their graves, compelled her to send her sons to their uncles
for shelter. She refused to share her suffering, her death with her sons.

While all
those forces of darkness were cascading, her first son who turned 14 years old,
was being initiated. Among the Dinka people, young males who are being
initiated are quarantined in “LUAK” (byre). They’re taught to stay away from
girls, duties connected with women, and duties of young boys. For three months,
the young men are trained or trained themselves for their new roles, the roles
of men, and the values “Mony Jaang” [MEN OF THE MEN]. Among the initiated youth
or youth being initiated, no one is allowed to touch utensils, pounding or
milling sorghum grains. Or even serve themselves meals. All these are done for
them by sisters, nieces and mothers.

But in
extreme cases like sickness or disabilities of the mothers, sisters, or nieces,
only the heavenly ‘anointed-initiated’ young men would do the unthinkable.
These are a few chosen and blessed souls. Among these God chosen souls, the
older son of the immobilised mother was a hero.

The elder
son would sneak out of the byre at midnight when all his age mates, the
initiates, were asleep. He would pound in a wooden mortar or mill sorghum paste
on a milling-stone. For an initiated male or a male being initiated to strip
himself of his dignity or privileges, one has to be sanguine about his future;
one has to be a dreamer.

However,
every time he sneaked out of the byre to help his bedridden mother and his
siblings, his best friends would track him down and force him back to the byre.
“What can we do to this boy; a boy who’s refusing to let go his boyish duties?”
they would insult and mock him. But the older son would do it again every other
day until they (the initiates) were graduated.

When he
was released (graduated) as an initiated young man, his mother’s health was no
good; her ashen face showed no life. He knew his mother wasn’t going to
recover. But they had to wait and pray for her recovery anyway.

As the
disease insidiously nibbled away her strength, she allowed her sister to adopt
her fourth son. Her sister had, by then, a child of her own breastfeeding. So,
the fourth son was seamlessly transitioned to breastfeed on one breast of his
auntie.

Since his
release, the first son had been shouldering the task of salvaging the hut to
save his mother from being crushed. With his inexperienced young self, he
couldn’t figure out what he needed to do with the crumbling hut. In those
trying times, his uncles were at the sidelines, watching her looming death —not
through the debilitating disease, not through starving in which their mother
sometimes went for days without eating, and definitely not through suiciding —
but through the preventable collapse of an old hut. On one fateful day, the
mother was buried under the rumble of her own hut. The aching muscles, bones
and arteries and veins were silent in a violent euthanasia.

After he
had mourned his beloved mother, the first son asked his three uncles to adopt
his three youngest brothers. Then, he borrowed a bullock. He drove that bullock
to Juba, which was the second biggest city of the whole Sudan, now the capital
city of South Sudan. He sold it, and started a business, but he was liked by
one of the Arab merchants who owned a bakery, a butchery and a shop in Juba.
The Arab merchant offered him a job as a shopkeeper.

For his
industrious character and honesty, the Arab merchant entrusted him with the
responsibility of managing the shop, bakery and butchery. He vanquished
laziness and abject poverty that had reeled around him, his siblings and his
parents. His hope in the face of death, his courage against all odds had expurgated
despondency in his mind. The owner (the Arab merchant) would travel to Khartoum
and other northern cities in search of business supplies. And whenever he came
back, he would find the first son running the businesses like his own
businesses; he would find him with unimaginable profits stashed away in the
business safe-box.

Then one
day – a blessing day or call it a payday – came in flying like a meteorite from
another planet. His boss, the owner of three businesses, the Arab merchant,
sailed to Khartoum. The first son diligently worked and managed the businesses
at the same pace. He honestly ran the three businesses as if the glaring eyes
of the owner were blazing down on his shoulders or at his innocent back. He was
whizzing profits from three businesses into the safe-box of his boss. But his
boss never returned.

His boss
never returned, until the first son sent his second younger brother to the
cattle camp to keep and herd the numerous cows he bought. His boss never
returned, until he married three wives for himself and wives for his three
brothers. His boss never returned, until he (the first son) left Juba when the
war broke out.

His boss
never returned, until he rose himself and his three brothers from the ashes of
poverty. His boss never returned, until he died 55 years later as one of the wealthiest
people in his clan. Hard work and honesty pays.

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